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Notes on...

Salzburg – more than just a ridiculously pretty place

It's the touch of darkness underneath the Mozart and Von Trapp trimmings that makes it so fascinating

14 June 2014

8:00 AM

14 June 2014

8:00 AM

Salzburg is so ridiculously pretty, it’s sometimes hard to take it seriously. Standing on the ramparts of its knights-in-armour castle, surrounded by snowcapped mountains, admiring the delicate cluster of domes and spires and turrets below, you can’t help thinking, ‘Is this for real?’ Well, yes and no. Salzburg is absurdly beautiful — the baroque architecture, the Alpine scenery — but what’s most intriguing is its sense of theatre, the way it’s adapted to fit the fantasies of millions of foreign visitors like me.

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